Not everyone takes part in it, but drinking and driving casts a dark shadow on our society.

In the world of marketing, companies are looking at ways to spread messages, and one of the messages Strategy Lab Marketing is looking to spread revolves around drinking and driving, as well as texting and driving.

How does that message crack the inner confines of people’s minds?

According to Jeph Maystruck, a consultant with Strategy Lab, that message starts with young people.

On Wednesday, Maystruck delivered a 40-minute presentation to a group of students at Vanier Collegiate. The Influence in 2014 presentation was an open forum on how marketing has changed – aimed specifically at drinking and driving and texting and driving.

“If it’s the students we are trying to influence, don’t tell them,” said Maystruck. “Let them tell themselves.”

Maystruck showed students a series of slides and asked them a series of questions related to advertising, communication and media consumption. Very few of those slides and questions were actually directed at drinking or texting and driving, but at how change can be influenced.

“It's a community outreach project, so we are visiting six different schools and we're going to get ideas about what they think is going on and what mediums they use,” Maystruck told the Times-Herald.

He admitted to being surprised by how open the students were and how much they were willing to share, including one student’s enamoured use of Snapchat.

An idea students raised also struck Maystruck, one he had not even considered as a marketing ploy: embarrassment.

That idea evolved into a brief discussion about people who would be required to drive around with a sticker on their vehicle that read “I text and drive.”

A public shaming in the form of embarrassment is way worse than guilt, one student contested.

“I haven’t taken the embarrassment (route) at all,” said Maystruck. “We might have gotten something gold out of that.”

He pointed out another potentially golden marketing ploy that would not only give students to explore their creative genius, but also win a prize, such as scholarship money.

“It would be a really cool outcome if, in a year's time, every Grade 12 class in Saskatchewan came up with a campaign to stop drinking and driving,” said Maystruck.

“We need to find the lever that creates the biggest outcome.”

That lever, noted Maystruck, is getting students to tell and influence their own peers about the dangers associated with drinking or texting and driving.

Nathan Liewicki can be reached at 306-691-1256 or follow him on Twitter @liewicks